The Gravy Train

how to start your day right

Crack open and lightly beat a few farm fresh eggs from Chucktown Chicken and scramble with dollops of chevre (this is my all-time favorite).  Add minced jalapeno and cilantro from the CSA we just joined a couple of weeks ago.  Slice heirloom tomatoes (also from our delightful CSA) and sprinkle with lavender salt.   Serve immediately to ooohs and ahhhs.

gravy baby gourmet: israeli couscous with matsutake mushrooms

Above: the Gravy Baby's lunch on Saturday; don't worry, I transferred it to a toddler-safe plastic plate before serving

The Gravy Baby is going through a growth spurt right now, which basically means that he eats everything in sight and more of it, immediately, right this second.  If those cooking competitions on TV want to really turn up the pressure on their contestants, I think they should try putting a screaming toddler in the room and making them come up with a meal that will calm the kid down.

I made this couscous in about 15 minutes for lunch on Saturday, during just one of those epic meltdowns.  I keep a stock of Israeli couscous made by Near East on hand for just such occasions; their boxes are small and easy to make in 10-12 minutes.  Instead of boiling in water according to the package directions, I use a little low-sodium chicken stock to impart some extra flavor into the couscous.  While the couscous cooks, I dice up whatever vegetables we have on hand to add to the couscous once it's done.  On this particular day, I happened to have some young broccolini and matsutake mushrooms, courtesy of my Aunt Jenny's mushroom guy and some eager Fed'exing on my aunt's part.  Along with some diced tomatoes and a splash of lemon juice and olive oil, the Gravy Baby gobbled this lunch right up:

How can I be sure that he loved this meal?  Let's see:

Yup, I think that's a go.

A simple recipe, after the jump.

a healthier mac, in a way

With fall vegetables abundantly available, I'm on the lookout for new ways to cook up our bounty.  On Sunday afternoon, I found myself with a pile of freshly chopped, peeled and seeded butternut squash.  Usually after the squash is broken down, I default into my usual M.O. of making a soup out of the soft, roasted innards.  

I'm happy to report that we're in a squash soup rut no more.  Of course my old gal pal Martha came through, like she always does, with an intriguing recipe for butternut squash mac 'n' cheese.  The hubby and I have a real weakness for the curative properties of an extremely fattening, completely unhealthy mac and cheese, so this alternative seemed like a good way for us to get our fix without overdoing it.

Amazingly, the sweetness of the butternut squash was a great counterbalance to the salty sharpness of the cheddar I used.  The squash also gave creaminess to the dish where heavy cream and butter ordinarily would.  Next time, though, I'll probably add a little more nutmeg and salt than the recipe called for -- I found the seasoning to be almost thorougly absorbed by the squash.

What are you cooking up this week?

For Martha's recipe on butternut squash mac 'n' cheese, click here.  For my usual, no-holds barred, amazingly rich and not at all healthy version, click here.

shrimp remoulade salad, and a goodbye

Shrimp remoulade salad topped with bacon, spinach, white corn, cucumbers and baby spinach

One of the fundamental tenets of being a good international lady of leisure requires being skilled at a coffee morning.  Coffee mornings are as ubiquitous to me here now as a 9:00 am conference call used to be -- a way to check in with my compatriots and gab a little about the current state of affairs. 

When I arrived here two years ago, I have to admit that I thought there'd be a little more fanfare -- you know, maybe not the full red carpet and paparazzi line, but at least a velvet rope and a nice little cocktail reception.  Of course, none of that happened (shocker), and so a few weeks later I found myself conspiring with a new friend over how we might make our own fun.

Watermelon & feta salad with mint, garnished with lemon zest and olive oil

That's when she and I crafted our own Coffee Mornings, inviting new ladies we met in our various comings-and-goings (which often frequently involved going to other people's Coffee Mornings).  We wanted to build a network of friends, eat some good food, and of course, caffeinate. 

Vietnamese summer rolls with chicken, mango & avocado

Last week I hosted my last Coffee Morning as an International Lady of Leisure.  I wanted to go out with a flourish, so I made foods that have had significance for me over the last two years.  I revisited a watermelon & feta salad, a dish I took to our first party here, adding lemon zest and olive oil as a dressing.  I assembled Vietnamese summer rolls that I learned to make while living here, and addded a twist by substituting the usual pork and shrimp with chicken, mango and avocado.  For our "main," I took the remoulade sauce I made in spades for a shrimp boil and scaled it down to a more manageable, dainty salad for the ladies.  And, for my go-to classic Coffee Morning dish, I made the Barefoot Contessa's cheddar-dill scones (if you haven't had them, you need to make them now.  Immediately.  Go.  I'll wait for you).

The best, most decadent scones ever: cheddar and dill, and oh, lots of heavy cream

There was a berry crisp with creme anglaise too, which I made because a friend of mine recently moved to Paris and left me with the precious contents of her freezer, including three bags of frozen berries.  Of course, in my excitement to eat and catch up with friends, I forgot to take photos.  I suppose a recipe for my shrimp remoulade salad will just have to do.  I hope that works.

Question: what are your favorite breakfast/brunch recipes?  I think Coffee Mornings can be a weekend thing, too, after we move home, and I'd love to hear yours!

(After the jump, my salad recipe.)

 

a "big" salad, nostalgia on the side

My version of the hubby's favorite buffalo chicken salad, from a greasy diner in Florida

Do you have foods that trigger a special memory for you?  You know, kind of like a song that comes onto the radio, and suddenly it's 1994 again, you're back at debate camp in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and there's a cute boy hanging on your every word while you're pretending to know the ins and outs of international relations as it relates to nuclear proliferation?  

Oh, um...yeah, so maybe that was just me.  (And, of course, so that you can have a full picture of the extent of my geekiness, the song is "Stay" by Lisa Loeb).  

The hubby has a food memory that he brings up every once in awhile.  It doesn't seem like this meal means anything particularly special to him, but whenever he and his dad used to go to Fort Lauderdale, they'd stop by the Floridian Diner (his parents live in South Florida).  The Floridian means enough to the hubby that on my second trip down there with him to visit his family, we made a detour on the way to the airport so that I could appreciate his fondness for the place.

Specifically, the hubby likes to have a buffalo chicken salad with blue cheese dressing.  It's not highbrow, it's not served on a small plate, and there's nothing locavore about it, but man, he really loves that salad.  He brings it up every once in awhile whenever we have a layover at some nondescript Asian airport and we're trying to decide between eating a sandwich suspiciously labeled "chicken ham" or a shapeless, flour-y steamed bun filled with mystery meat (the latter usually wins; sometimes we're not disappointed). It's almost like, in the absence of any good food in our immediate vicinity, he'd like to be transported to the Floridian to have that salad, or for the salad to magically appear wherever we are.  Such is the power of this memory.

Last week I made the hubby a slightly-dressed up version of this favorite salad, using field greens, Japanese kyuri cucumbers and Roma tomatoes from the Genting Highlands.  The hubby scarfed down his salad without saying much ("Too busy.  Eating."), which I take to mean I didn't didn't stray too far from the version he remembers.

After the jump, the recipe.

a quick scone for a leisurely tea

Scones for tea time at Casa de Gravy

One of the habits I've tried to bring back with me from Sri Lanka is afternoon tea.  When the hubby, the Gravy Baby and I were lazing about in the mountains last month, surrounded by tea plantations, our hostess at the estate house would serve us a tray of tea accompanied by some cake or scones topped with cream and jam.  We'd sip our tea and nibble on our warm treats while the Gravy Baby rolled around with his toys, and I just loved being able to slow down and take a minute to relax.  I vowed that I'd try to do that every once in awhile when were at home, during the Gravy Baby's naps.

Well, as it turns out, there were a couple of flaws in my plan.  First of all, the appeal of afternoon tea is that everything is served to me on a platter, and all I have to do is pour, sit back and enjoy.  When I'm alone, the only person to prepare my tea is me, which means I have to start setting it up a good half-hour before I can sit down to enjoy it.  Secondly, the Gravy Baby went on a nap strike shortly after we came back from Sri Lanka, and suddenly my blissful 2-hour breaks in the afternoon were no more.  The dainty accompanying tea snack I'd envisioned having along with my tea was whittled down to a smear of peanut butter on toast.  This was eaten standing up with the Gravy Baby balanced on my hip, followed by gulping down my tea as soon as it was cool enough to do so (and sometimes, scalding my esophagus when I discovered it wasn't).

So much for relaxing.

Above left: whipped cream substitutes for traditional British clotted cream along with Danish Selection raspberry jam; above left: a closeup of the easiest scones I've ever made

I'd pretty much accepted that my best-laid plans had gone awry, despite a few attempts to make a quick bread or some sort of alternate snack that I could whip up in a jif.  Then I discovered quite possibly the easiest, quickest recipe for scones I've ever found.  The recipe promised at least a handful of scones in under 20 minutes, and given that I've had some truly terrible, dried-out scones before, I wasn't very optimistic that these scones would be much different.

It turns out I was wrong.  With my trusty food processor and a small juice glass that I used as a biscuit cutter, not only did I beat the clock at under 20 minutes, but the scones were perfectly flaky and buttery, just the way I'd come to enjoy them in Sri Lanka.  Best of all, the recipe uses ingredients I regularly stock in my kitchen, so there wasn't any need to run out to the market.  With the Gravy Baby distracted by his brightly-colored baby "jail," I was even able to crank out some fresh whipped cream for topping the scones.  Along with my new favorite raspberry jam and some delicious Sri Lankan tea, in just about thirty minutes' time I was able to sit down and enjoy my little afternoon break with the Gravy Baby happily bounce, bounce, bouncin' away.

Read more about these easy scones by Mark Bittman here.